Somewhere in Between
by SmiCln
Summary: Beginning a while before the game, this is a potential telling of the story from the monster's perspective. Set in an AU where monsters have human appearance, this story is a character driven plot, focusing on the relationships between the characters while including over arching themes and unresolved histories. Rated T fro heavy themes and later violence. Please give it a chance!
1. The First Chapter

**Yeet hello this is my first story ever(apart from a PAW patrol one I wrote to be a troll). This story is sort of the point of view of the monsters during the time we see in the game.**

 **There wont be any swearing(unless you gonna tell my mum I said heck, damn, dang, crap, frick, and poopybutt). And there wont be any sex or whatever. This is rated highish cause it will have slightly graphic violence later, but mainly because it takes an intimate dive into mental illness and other sensitive things like child abuse and suicide. Some people have begun to glorify such things and want to have them, thinking its cool or makes you like Sans-kun or something; this is dangerous because it will normalises life destroying things and makes people care less. So I want to provide an intimate first person look at it to show what its really like and clear some stigma.**

 **Its set in an AU called InherentTale cause I like the word and more normal sounding words that were still relevant were taken. This AU is sort of 'sister universe' to UT. By that I mean there are AUs like swap and fell, which use Undertale as a canvas, only changing some things. IT(frick lol nice work me) is like another canvas, the whole universe is quite different, so you could, for example, have UnderFell and InherentFell(catch me cringing each time I say 'inherent'. Oof).**

 **So on to how this AU is different: starting from basics and working our way out, in this universe, monsters kind of physically exist on two planes of existence, to the eye of anyone that isn't a monster, most monsters look like humans, each to a different degree, but every monster does have some sign that gives them away as a monster. When a monster looks at another, they can see them in both ways, monstrous appearance and human-like appearance at the same time.**

 **The idea for this Au formed when I was trying to find a logical way for the skeletons to move, talk, breathe, bleed, eat, ect. I was like 'hey maybe their guts are in another dimension'(although they should be able to bleed cause blood is made in the bones), which just ended up becoming them existing in two dimensions 0_o. I also wanted to stray from the 'living in a game' view of it, it just didn't seem realistic and didn't allow the strange beauty of organic life and existence. So because of this, I threw most of it through logic and realistic reasoning so now its more…authentic and less apathetical(?).**

 **A lot of things like the environment, magic, souls, and other stuff are explained scientifically to a degree, but ill say more on that later cause its not important right now.**

 **Where in the game the mountain is a single mountain, this mountain is actually a chain of mountains, holding a population of around 350,000 monsters.**

 **The characters may seem a bit OOC, and that's true cause it hard to decide what they may do, choosing between personality and way of thinking. But in the case of Sans at least, I know what im doing with him, trust me.**

 **And also, this AU as a whole is a bit edgy as in a bit darker but also all the characters are sort of savage cause I cant control myself. Sans is normally thought of as telling knock knock jokes and puns, this take on him is more like general whit and savagery cause I cant help it. Its gonna feel weird and a bit wrong, but trust me, its still him, just in a different light.**

 **Anyways, ill explain it further later on. For now, just read the story and don't hate me XD X(.**

 **My gosh why am I acting so cringy?.**

 **Oh And the original characters, world, and concept belong to Toby Fox, I only 'own' this AU and emotional messes injected into this story.**

* * *

Well that was an…interesting story.

Sans snapped the book closed and put it back in what probably wasn't its place on the shelf.

The book was definitely up for interpretation: the story had strange pacing and if he deciphered it correctly, it ended with him having a daughter and living the rest of his life hiding from the law with her. This book definitely came from the surface. Humans had weird taste in literature.

Then again, he had only flipped through it; as if he'd actually use his break time reading that book.

He continued on his original task, searching through the titles stacked on the shelves. He was more or less familiar with most of them due to repetition of this exercise, but new books appeared now and then.

He followed up the shelf over to a label that said 'Fiction'. He swore under his breath; no wonder he couldn't find what he was looking for, how did he even end up in this aisle?.

"That's a bad word"

Sans jumped inside his head. He turned and looked down to see a little kid staring at him.

"Sorry?..." he asked, "…oh!" he exclaimed with realisation "um…yeah you're right…sorry about that, was just that i…"

This was sort of weird.

"…urm seeya"

He said in a way as if only half talking to the kid as he stepped backwards and spun around into the other aisle and walked briskly down it.

The kid, a bird monster with dusty brown hair, followed him.

"I cant find my mum, do you know where she is?" the child asked, moving at a faster pace to catch up with him.

"I don't know, man…where did you last see her?" Sans asked distractedly, still trying to get away.

"She was around there" the child said as he pointed towards the front.

Sans rolled onto his tip toes for a moment to look over the shelves in the direction the kid had pointed. He saw a woman, also a bird monster, talking to someone.

"She's still over there." Sans said with a slight tone mixed up of confusion and weirded out as he looked down at the kid.

"Oh…thanks, mister." the kid said as he ran off to his mum.

Sans pulled a confused expression for a second and then continued on his route.

Once he found a book that was partly what he was looking for, he took it to the front desk of the library and put the book on the counter.

Diego turned from whatever it was he was looking at, looked at Sans, down at the book, and then turned again to whatever he was doing with a heavy sigh.

"You can get that book, Sans, when you return those other five that are overdue by two months" Diego said sluggishly in a tone of disinterest.

"Two months? I think you're exaggerating. Tell you what: you let me get this book now, and ill bring it back when its only two weeks overdue" Sans said with a hopeful smile, nudging the book across the desk towards Diego.

"That's quite ambitious for you, Sans. You really think you can manage that? Don't want to strain your responsibility." Diego said, still not looking at him or making any move to leave what he was doing, which was probably just browsing Ugly Sweaters R Us. "You can have the book when you pay your fines and bring back all the books you seem to think you own."

" _OR_ you could let me get this book right now and ill go home and look for the books and bring them back next time I pass by." Sans said persistently.

"Next time? You live five minutes away and you pass by multiple times a day and yet we both know its going to take you at least four days." He said with a bit of a snaring smirk. "and 'find'? you mean you don't even read the books?" Diego said, finally turning his head and looking at him.

Sans paused for a moment, thinking for a slight second. This much delay for a comeback from him was a rare if not triumphant occasion.

"Uuuuuuh…of course I read them, I just…okay _how about_ -"

"Look whatever, Sans. Just take the book and try bring them all back before I retire. Okay?." Diego sighed, "Its not like there are tonnes of peoples in Snowdin that are interested in whatever it is you're interested in." he looked back at the computer screen.

Sans' face brightened "Ill try. Thanks" He chuckled as he grabbed the book off the counter and made to leave with a lively step.

"Welcome. Now get out of my library."

"You mean librarby?." Sans said with smirk and spin as he walked backwards.

"Don't you test me, boy!." Diego warned with a growl.

ᕕ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ᕗ

He finally had his book, which took about fifteen minutes in total to get. That meant that any minute, Papyrus would be looking for him and preparing his next lecture.

He was incorrect, because Papyrus was already here. It would appear Papyrus was getting familiar with this routine.

Sans stuffed the book into the pocket of his blue hoodie and began to walk into the less open areas of the town as he saw Papyrus storming in a bee line towards Grillby's.

As soon as Papyrus entered the building, Sans began to run back towards his station in the woods. He was nearly out of town when Papyrus stepped out of Grillby's, looked around with a pinched brow, caught sight of his brother's fleeting form, screamed out his name, and began chasing him at the speed of light.

Sans gave a yelping laugh as he picked up his pace and zoomed as fast as he could. This was always the best part.

Although Sans was reasonably fast at top speed, Papyrus had longer legs, more stamina, and a lot of practice. Taking into account Sans' head start, it only took two minutes before Papyrus was no more than ten metres away.

"Sans you cant play that card this time!. I've already caught you so you cant pretend you were there the whole time!." Papyrus yelled as he began closing in. they had just passed Greater Dog's area.

Sans just laughed.

"Stooop!" Papyrus cried as he leaped and tackled Sans.

The two skidded and tumbled through the snow for a good twenty metres. Papyrus rolled onto his back with his brother in a headlock.

"You buffoon!" Papyrus shouted over his brother's laughing. "I cant believe you tried that _again_!".

"Oh hey, bro" Sans giggled with a full smile, "whatcha' doin'?."

Papyrus growled, still not releasing his hold on Sans. "what am i-?! I should ask you that! What are you doing slacking off your job, leading me on some silly chase and pretending none of that happened!." Sans' partly chocked laughter continued. "I will never understand you and I'm not sure I want to anyway." Papyrus said exasperated as he released Sans, shoving him off and standing up.

Sans remained lying in the turned-up snow, still laughing.

"For goodness sakes, Sans. Pull yourself together" Papyrus scolded as he brushed off snow and straightened his attire.

"Come on that was fun, man. Admit it. Come on" Sans laughed as he slowly got up.

Papyrus glared at his brother as he fixed his brown hair back into its usual well-groomed style before a smile cracked at the corner of his lips. "I suppose so." Papyrus admitted begrudgingly.

"Aw man are you smiling?" Sans laughed "I can see you smiling, man."

Papyrus looked away as he fought off a full smile, creating a smirk. "you're so stupid." papyrus muttered, trying to be mad as he crossed his arms. Causing Sans to laugh harder.

"Stop laughing." Papyrus grumbled.

"Stop being so uptight, yah hypocrite." Sans smirked

"I'm not. You're not serious enough about this."

It wasn't often when they were both in the same expressive mood. Whenever Papyrus was happy or energetic, Sans was moody and quiet. Whenever Sans was playful or rambunctious, Papyrus was an up-tight killjoy

Sans pulled a goofy 'oh really' face at Papyrus, Papyrus glared back. This lasted for all of six seconds before Papyrus cracked a smile a shoved his hand at Sans' face.

"Come on we need to get back to work, you idiot." Papyrus said in a bright and barely disciplined tone as he shook his head and began walking to the original destination. Sans put his hands in his hoodie pocket as he followed his brother. Both smiling as they went, whether or not they wanted to.

despite their often polar moods, there were moments like this when they both were just happy. They both treasured these moments.

"Sans, as much as I enjoy your little game and as much as I think its good for you-no listen to me-" Papyrus held up a hand in response to Sans now bitter expression "You actually do need to do your job. If you get paid for it, you do actually have to do it, Sans."

"I do do my job, Papyrus."

"Really? Well then what were you doing so far away from your post?." Papyrus raised an eyebrow as he looked expectantly for an answer from his brother.

"…patrolling. Those humans could be anywhere."

Papyrus sighed. "Well if you're not going to give me a proper answer for what you were doing, you can at least do your job properly _now_."

Sans gave no reply, only glancing up briefly at his big little brother and then at the ground ahead of him. Papyrus stared down at his little big brother contemplatively for a moment before also looking ahead in silence. The mood wasn't heavy, but it wasn't as comfortably light as moments ago. The rest of the short walk was spent in silence other than the noise created by creatures that inhabited the surrounding woods.

( ͡ʘ╭͜ʖ╮͡ʘ)

Once the last station before the Ruin doors was in sight, Papyrus broke the silence:

"We only have about two and a half hours left. Can you pleeeeeeeease try not wander off?."

"My gosh, Papyrus. I'm not that bad; believe it or not, I actually _can_ do things."

"I didn't say you could do anything, Sans, I said you can't take this seriously. One day a human may come through here and you're our first line of defence and…"

And there it was. That stupid term and the good old lecture he had heard a thousand times. Maybe it was partly his fault because his actions deserved it, he wasn't so irresponsible that he couldn't admit his own flaws, in fact, he _wasn't_ that irresponsible, he just didn't take his job serious because it was hard to. The likelihood of a human ever coming through there in his life time wasn't very large. He only really did it because it was important to Papyrus and it was a form of income, no matter how boring it was; he was a very patient person and he didn't mind being paid to sit around, but even he got restless. Besides, all the sitting made his butt hurt.

"- so can you please just try act like its important?." Papyrus finished his rant slightly pink in the face from talking so much with so few breaths.

"Yeah ok sure whatever I'm sorry" Sans said with his hands held in the universal symbol for surrender as he walked towards his post. "ill try, now go away."

"I'll go away when you say you promise y-"

"Yeah ok I promise now go awa-"

"You didn't mean that I kno-"

"OK well I mean it now so go aw-"

"No you still don't mea-"

"OK fine whatever, ma-"

"you better mea-"

"I do"

"Good!"

"Good!"

"Good!"

"Now go away!"

"I am!"

"Good!"

"Good!"

"Good!"

"You better not fall asleep!."

"I wont!."

"if you do I will hit you!."

" _I wont!_."

"Good!."

"Good!."

"Good!."

They continued shouting 'good' back and forth as Papyrus headed back to his own post until they had to nearly scream to hear each other faintly.

Sans sat down heavily with a sigh. Well that had been fun. They should definitely do it again; he was getting faster, too.

He pulled the book out of his pocket and examined it properly. He had almost exhausted the local libraries supply of books that had anything to do with magic; ranging from scientific to solely religious and even to some things that seemed a little 'off brand' and shady. He had been doing research just to fill the time (he loved doing research but not following up on it. Discovery and learning was the best part of it) but he felt he may be on the verge of a breakthrough. To what, he knew not, but it had potential to be something proper, like proper beneficial proper.

The Snowdin library only had so much available. He knew somewhere where he could get exactly what he needed, and it wouldn't be hard to get either, but he didn't want to have to do that yet; it was a different kind of hard.

Due to the fact he had read nearly all available books on the broadest range of the topic, sixty percent of the stuff in the book was old news that he already knew, but it was still interesting enough; better than doing his job and waiting for legendary humans to just wander up a mountain and just happen to fall in without dying and then come this specific way. But if it made Papyrus happy, he'd do nearly anything.

"SANS!"

"What the he…!"

"You fell asleep that's what!."

His shoulder hurt. He hated waking up like this: when you're so tired that you feel sick and when you start dozing you feel like magnets are pulling on your brain and weights are on your eyes; and then when you wake up suddenly, you're so disoriented that you feel you cant breathe and gravity is trying to crush you. Maybe that was a bit dramatic or maybe he was slowly dying, but that's how it felt and it sucked. Papyrus' shouting wasn't great, either.

"I cannot believe you!."

Sans pulled himself up and willed himself back into the land of the living and a particular way of perceiving reality. Great, the weird thoughts. He had a rule to never think about anything complex before you go to sleep or after you wake up: especially not when you're sick. If you did, you'd have slow, painful, half-lucid dreams or you'd wake up feeling like you're in limbo and loaded on ten kilos of hallucingenics…not that knew what that was like. Gosh he hated the weird thoughts. Are you talking to yourself again?.

"Sans!."

"urm…yeah…?"

Man, he felt like Hell.

"…are you alright?." concern

He took a deep breath and blinked a few times.

"…yeah im good…sorry, just tired." he said as he pinched the bridge of his nose with his eyes squeezed closed.

Before, it was like he was blind but also wasn't, he was okay now, though. Papyrus was there, it was a tad darker, maybe.

"Wait can we go home now?." Sans said as he looked up.

"Yes, I suppose."

"Nice."

Sans stood up, the movement being slightly too quick and unnoticeably losing his balance for a second before everything was good again, all be it he was a little groggy.

"Come on then, lets go." Papyrus said.

Sans stretched and then followed beside his brother. Finally, the worst part of the day was over. Wait.

"What day is it, Papyrus?."

"…Wednesday. Why? Papyrus asked with a touch of confusion.

"Nothing jus' won'ring if you had training today" Sans said.

'Oh OK. No, that's tomorrow."

"Oh joy." Sans sighed, with a hint or sarcasm mixed in there but mostly future exhaustion.

"Come on, Sans; I know you two aren't best friends but she isn't that bad." Papyrus defended, "If you ask me, I think you're more the problem than she is." he muttered.

This time Sans groaned. "I know I aggravate her but she aggravates me just as much. Our personalities aren't exactly neighbouring puzzle pieces, if you get what I mean. Besides, no one gets hurt; at the end of the day its just funny."

"If you say so…" Papyrus shook his head.

Sans could feel his brother's frustration and disappointment. Those emotions immediately transferred to himself; that wasn't okay.

"OK I won't say anything rude or insult her intelligence or highlight the endless list of ways she i-".

"SANS!." Papyrus shouted.

"OK OK I'm sorry!." Sans laughed "But honestly, if it makes you happy ill stop being 'the cause of the problem'.".

"Thank you."

They walked together in comfortable silence in the serenity of the silent white forest thick with shadowing, tall trees, bleeding with shades of vibrant to dark blues and cyans. By now they had passed Papyrus' station and were coming towards Doggo's post. Without verbal communication, the two skeleton monsters both silently looked in unison to see if the gruff husky dog monster would notice them as they passed by.

Busy watching Doggo sit at his post with a smoking biscuit in his mouth with his arms folded, Sans didn't pay attention to where he was walking; a hollow under the snow(made by vegitoids or other creatures) gave way as Sans stepped on it. Falling to one side with an 'oof' as his right leg sunk in up to his knee. Papyrus, who also wasn't paying attention due to also looking to the side as he walked, yelped as he was caught off guard by his shorter brother dropping out of the corner of his eye.

His eyes may have been closed or maybe just looked down, but now Doggo was scanning the surrounding terrain with his icy blue eyes.

"Who's there?!" he growled, standing up.

Papyrus and Sans both looked at each other. Sans signalled to Papyrus to be silent.

"I can smell you…Sans is that you?!" Doggo immediately became less on edge and more of just annoyed.

All sat in silence for a split second before Sans answered in some weird voice designed to be a bad disguise "…no…this is your…optometrist here to tell you tha-"

He was cut off by Papyrus whacking him over the head with a very disapproving expression on his face.

"I'm sorry, Doggo, please forgive my brother's rudeness." Papyrus said as he stood up from kneeling on one knee next to his brother who wasn't looking the smallest bit apologetic.

"Papyrus…? Oh my dog…Sans I hate you, you moron…!" Doggo growled, now looking entirely annoyed and ready to plant his fist in a specific person's face.

But of course, Sans wasn't quite done yet.

"oh, Doggo…!" he faked surprise as he climbed back to his feet "I didn't know that was you…you see the thing is," he restrained a laugh at the unintentional jab at the dog monster's visual impairment, "I didn't see you there." The last words came out at a higher pitch and the sentence ended with a high pitched, wabbly giggle that sounded like he was about to cry.

Papyrus barely restrained from punching Sans back into the snow. He couldn't believe this.

Doggo and Papyrus both exploded into heated shouts and the whole situation descended into verbal open fired noise with Sans as the only recipient.

Doggo looked like he was about to get physical as Papyrus roughly grabbed his brother by his hood and dragged him away face down in the snow as he showered endless apologies to Doggo.

"What is wrong with you today?!." Papyrus shouted after they were a little farther away from the fuming dog monster.

"What do you mean?," Sans asked as he lifted his face out of the snow so that he was being pulled along looking like a sliding penguin.

"Acting so insufferable and obnoxious!.".

"Its fine, I know Doggo and Doggo knows me, its like an unspoken agreement that that is the way we interact.".

"No. No, it is not 'fine'!" Papyrus marched on forward without showing any intention to stop making a path leading all the way to Snowdin town with his brother's body. Sans didn't seem to mind much, though. Of course he didn't; he was annoying like that. "And even if it is," Papyrus continued, "its stupid and rude and as much as you don't care about what people think of you, our reputations are connected, and I do care what people think about me. Its called dignity- but you wouldn't understand what that is.".

"I'm not the one dragging myself through the snow." Sans didn't even sound like he was taking any of this seriously, but then again, he rarely did. "Speaking of that, can you not stretch my hoodie? Its one of the few things that I take seriously.".

Absolutely insufferable. Papyrus wordlessly released Sans to faceplant back in the snow as he walked around him and continued on to town, pulling Sans by his ankle. Of course Sans was laughing.

Papyrus was still trying to be mad, but he gave up; he didn't see any use in staying angry when it wouldn't do anything. But, now that he thought about it, the whole situation _was_ kind of funny; and he hated it!. It was always like this: Papyrus always got angry easily but calmed down too quickly because Sans had some stupid gift of being annoying and infuriating but also funny- he'd rather live his brother's life style than admit it out loud- but he found him admirably goofy in a way that he loved and hated. He always found himself fighting a grin after these kinds of things. It was always the same.

"Ouch I think I got a splinter." Sans stated from out of Papyrus' sight, breaking the silence as they went across the bridge that was never approved for safe use.

"Oh really? Poor you. Well now you know what it's like to constantly have something or someone getting under your skin." Papyrus said, his amusement slipping into his tone.

Sans made that stupid laugh that sounded like some kind of explosion in his nose* and then descended into what sounded like he was crying in pain while running out of breathe. Sometimes he hated that laugh, sometimes he adored it, of course he would never admit that either. This whole day had been ridiculous.

They were _finally_ back in town now. It was the busier time of the day, maybe a bit of public embarrassment would put Sans in check, but he gave up hope on that possibility as Sans waved to and greeted people the went past. Some who were clearly familiar with the brothers returned the greeting as if nothing was unusual about dragging an adult through the middle of town. Others just stared, not surprised at all. More than half of Snowdin knew Sans on a personal level, a quarter knew Papyrus, but everyone was familiar with their antics and knew their names due to them constantly being shouted out at each other as they did who knows what next.

"Will you stop already?." Papyrus scolded as Sans shouted "BYE" to no one in particular as they left the main part of town and headed towards their own abodes, which was on the farther edge of town. "I honestly don't know what's gotten into you today.".

"Oh man I didn't realise it was illegal to be in a good mood, what's the fine?" Sans quipped as he rested his chin on his folded arms as they ploughed through the white snow.

"Whatever." Papyrus sighed as he rolled his eyes.

Finally at their house, Papyrus dragged Sans up the couple steps and dropped him at the front door, unlocked it, and went inside.

"You just got a free ride, you better pay me for my services." Papyrus called back.

It took twenty seconds of mental war before Sans mustered the will-power to get up and walk inside, closing the door behind him as he brushed of all the snow, twigs, and various over collectables he had obtained along the way.

"Can you please not do that inside?; put it all back outside." Papyrus grimaced.

"What if I don't want to?." Sans smirked as he looked up.

"Well then you can stay outside until you change into something less filthy." Papyrus answered back. All these years living with Sans, more or less raised by Sans, he had learnt how to combat his brothers witty attitude to a degree.

"I wasn't the one that dragged me through the snow for half an hour" Sans muttered as he went upstairs. The clicking of the lock on his door signified that he probably wouldn't be seen again for at least three hours, perhaps the rest of the day if he managed to slink away without Papyrus catching him.

Papyrus sighed. He didn't like how much time his brother spent alone hiding away in his room or the 'shed' outside.

Papyrus sat down on the lumpy old couch in the living room and pulled a sudoku out from under a stack of library books that were possibly years overdue; he wouldn't be surprised if they were. That wasn't his problem though, he was going to spend his down time doing non-stressful things and not worrying about other people's messes that they refused to fix.

He had already solved three in half an hour; a very productive rate. His attention was starting to stray, though. Maybe he could clean the house…or reorganise his wardrobe and action figures…maybe he could take up a new hobby…knitting seemed cool. Maybe Undyne knew something about that. Maybe Undyne was doing something interesting?.

He pulled out his phone and called Undyne's number. It rang for a while, but he was used to that. Undyne was often doing something that kept her hands tied, making too much noise, or just not picking up on purpose. For people that seemed so different, Undyne and Sans shared a lot of similar traits. The ringing stopped after nearly a minute.

"Hey Papyrus."

"Hey, Undyne!"

"What you want, Punk?." her voice panted through the speaker.

"Just wondering what you are doing right now?."

"Just a light work-out. Why?."

"I have a question for you."

"Shoot."

"Do you by any chance know how to knit?."

"Pfff no. Why makes you think I can knit?." Undyne asked with an amused tone.

"Well you know how to do stuff I want to do."

"You mean two or three things?. I thought Sans was the one that has a bunch of random skills; why don't you ask him." Some background noise came through as she spoke.

"Good idea!...HEY SANS!." Papyrus shouted, not taking the phone down from his face.

"SANS!" he called again.

"what?."

"WHAT DID YOU SAY!?"

"I said 'WHAT"!" Sans screamed back as he yanked open his door, tired but in the mood for messing with people.

"OH OK!" Papyrus screamed.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" Sans continued screaming even though they could both hear each other.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW TO KNIT?!" Papyrus didn't seem to be aware of the fact he was still shouting.

"NIT!? WHAT THE HELL?! IS THAT MEANT TO BE AN INSULT?!" Sans screamed at the top of his lungs despite the fact he was making eye contact with Papyrus.

"NO I MEAN KNIT AS IN WITH YARN!"

"NO, I DON'T KNOW HOW TO Knit as in yarn" Sans' voice broke and he laughed the rest of his reply.

"OH OK."

"Stop shouting." Sans laughed as we went back in his room and locked the door again.

"No, he doesn't know how to knit." Papyrus said back to the phone.

"Uh yeah I know, I heard" Undyne said "You must have really tolerant neighbours." The last part sounded more like a statement.

"No, they just gave up on complaining."

Undyne responded with a bubble of laughter

"Hm…hey did you see the new episode of CWAKR?" Papyrus asked with a new enthusiasm.

"Yeah, it was okay."

The conversation continued on, jumping from various topics as they usual do.

"Well anyway, I gotta go now." Undyne said.

"Oh…yeah ok…" The disappointment was clear in Papyrus' voice "I should probably go, too, actually…see you tomorrow."

" Seeya, Punk!." She hung up.

Papyrus sighed. He enjoyed talking to Undyne, she actually seemed to enjoy it, too. She felt like a genuine friend and maybe that gave him comfort for the lack of friends he had; how many friends does one really need anyway?.

He stood up from the couch and kind of just stood there, thinker about what he could do to fill the next few hours. The thing was with Papyrus, rather than making a list, he would think up one or two ideas and just go with what seemed the better of the options. He did a few things here and there, cleaning up small messes and throwing out the 'uneaten' shredded cheese Sans had left for his pet rock. After his phone call with Undyne he was feeling in a social mood, so he spent some time on his computer in his room. It was pretty boring and uninteresting trying to fill empty space and time with random stuff, the lack of structure felt sloppy and I'm honestly just trying to make it to 5, 000 words so give me a break, guys.

He spent an unknown amount of unproductive time seeking social interaction online but didn't really get much of it done. He could have done something more beneficial, but his yearning for friends was his weak spot. Either he was unaware of this or he wasn't willing to admit it.

He doubted Sans was still in his room, he had probably gone off somewhere or passed out under his bed or something; his brother was weird like that. Either way he would probably be spending the rest of the night alone, and that's exactly what he did. After eating reheated food from the refrigerator for his dinner, he went to bed around nine o'clock. Alone.

* * *

 **Oof wow that was absolutely terrible ._.'**

 **Welp I hope you didn't find it complete crap and perhaps even enjoyed it. The first few chapters will be slowish and uneventful but due to the nature of this story, its supposed to kind of slow; this isn't telling a story, its just narrating whats happening in a period of time, a bit of a less common story format.**

 **I you liked this at all, please consider following me, I swear it gets better!.**

 **Comments would be awesome, id love to hear any thoughts or ideas, ideas would be brilliant and helpful and another person's perspective is incredibly valuable.**

 **cya.**


	2. Hows your day been?

**My most sincere apologies but im afraid that I have posted another chapter.**

 **Uuuuhmmmmmmm…not sure what to say lol. I said I was gonna explain some more of the universes mechanics, by that I mean this AU, not the strangeness but beauty of dark energy and vacuum energy wow haha im so funny**

It was around about four o' clock when Sans finished his second shift for that day. Due to the nature of the job as a sentry, shifts would be at different times throughout the week. Today Papyrus and himself had had the usual Snowdin shift, which ended around twelve o' clock in the afternoon that day, and then Sans had gone to his post in waterfall about an hour afterwards. It was boring as hell just sitting around for hours on end performing an incredibly uneventful and pointless task. Undyne shared his mentality somewhat, agreeing that is wasn't very likely that they'll ever actually find or catch a human, but as the head of the Royal Guard and the defence system of the entire underground, she had a duty to take precautions and consider the possibility- no matter how small- that a human may come through at anytime. She had to take the possibility seriously, but that didn't mean he had to, so he spent most of the time on duty doing anything he possibly could to do anything _but_ what he was supposed to do.

After fulfilling three hours of doing nothing and getting payed for it, Sans was on his leisurely way to Undyne's house where Papyrus currently was. Originally Undyne hadn't really had anything to do with Papyrus, only knowing about him through Sans. Although she didn't really know much about Papyrus, Papyrus was nuts about anything to do with being a royal guard, which included Undyne. Sans only applied both of them for the job because he knew it would make Papyrus happy; of course it only fed the flame and Papyrus became set on joining the royal guards. So Sans approached Undyne about showing Papyrus a thing or two and she agreed to train him only because he seemed to have a good work ethic, lots of enthusiasm, and one other reason that everyone was aware of but no one had really vocalised.

Papyrus wasn't the only monster with what was in Sans' opinion- an unhealthy obsession and admiration for the brutish fish. If you passed children playing, it would be very likely that they would be fighting over who gets to be Undyne in their make-believe games. Speaking of children, there were a couple-probably wagging school-who were messing around with the echo flowers that grew all over the place in Waterfall where he was passing through.

Aside from the few who were sceptical about the flowers-because there are always sceptics for everything-people loved the multi-wonder flowers. Kids especially loved to use the flower's sap as 'face paint' as it's magical properties worked harmoniously with monster magic, unveiling the unique monster skin wherever you put the sap.

There was a reptilian kid with their face covered in scales that appeared translucent and slightly neon due to the flower's natural luminescence, who was chasing around a smaller kid who was giggling and mock-screaming and splashing through puddles; they were most likely siblings.

The waters here were full of magical properties; whether the water had gotten it from the flowers, or the flowers had gotten their properties from the water, they both acted like mirrors. Sans knew part of the science to the magic, but that ruins the magic, so he had always kept it to himself.

Sans watched his skeletal reflection wobble and stutter as he walked through the many puddles on the ground. The incoherent chatter, shouts, and laughter of the kids echoed in the cavernous structure of Waterfall while the echo flowers amplified and reverbed the noise.

His favourite place in the entire Underground would have to be either the seemingly endless forests outside Snowdin or the winding catacombs of Waterfall. Hotland was a big no for lots of monsters, but not everyone found it easy to tolerate the frigid weather in Snowdin, either, but everyone loved Waterfall; it was a beautiful place.

Sans was pulled from his thoughts by someone greeting him. He looked up to see the wrinkled smile of an old tortoise monster.

"Hey, Gerson." Sans smiled as he halted.

"How you holding up, sonny?"

"I'm doing okay; how bout you?"

"Still kicking" the old man laughed from inside his nook. "where you off to?"

"Undyne's; Papyrus is there."

"Those two have really bonded, ay. I'm sure they make quite a team."

"A demolition team, maybe." Sans accented his statement with a nod of his head to the side.

Gerson wheezed a crackly laugh "True that, true that…" he said with a fond shake of his head. "Take care now, sonny."

"I will; you, too." Sans said farewell with a wave of his hand.

Sans savoured the last of the cerein silence before he turned the corner to Undyne's place where the two expected monsters were clashing around, doing whatever it is they do. Hopefully he could just slip past them. Never mind.

"Hey, Sans!" Papyrus shouted as he caught sight of his brother.

"Hey, man" Sans replied in his usual chill tone that was only a few health bars above being lifeless deadpan. He quickly slipped inside through the front door.

All while, Undyne simply watched the short interaction before continuing the current activity with Papyrus.

Sans looked around the visible part of the house. There were weapons of all nature strewn around, not to mention the general mess. The kitchen was hell, of course, the only thing in the house that looked cared for was the sleek black concert piano. Sans loved piano, well he loved most instruments really; there was something other-worldly about music. Out of everything, though, what stuck out the most was the large hole in one of the walls. Sans sighed.

Originally Undyne had agreed to personally train Papyrus for an amount of money, but as she grew to know him, she began to see training the spunky skeleton as an enjoyment more than a chore and had continued to train him in exchange for Sans fixing any more-complicated damage done to her house. Sans was fine with that, it gave him something to do with his skills and it made him feel less guilty about doing a sucky job at his normal work, which he got payed for doing: despite his apparent attitude, he actually did care about holding his side of any deal. All in all, the arrangement made things about even and all three benefitted.

With closer inspection, the hole in the wall was full of severed wires and some small pipes. Splendid.

Without letting his mind go into details and analysis, he already knew it would involve the house's entire electrical and plumbing system. Of course, he could just isolate the area, but he would have to know the electrical lay out of the house and he didn't care _that_ much. Seeing as he Papyrus would take a while, he decided to start the task later and flopped on the couch instead, reaching to the side and grabbing the nearest object, which was an extremely not-for-training dagger. His brow rose; Undyne scared him sometimes, if he were to be honest.

The entire weapon was roughly the length of his forearm. The handle was quite intricate and the blade was made of steel, the edges wear visible sharp to a micro thickness.

His eyes remained on the sharpness of the edge, before focusing on his own reflection in the polished metal. He kept staring and staring, getting more and more lost in it, becoming less aware of his surroundings or his senses. It felt like an eternity before he blinked, physically felt his mind zooming back into his body and the present.

He let the dagger slip back down to the floor, his now-empty hand going to his face as he squeezed his eyes closed and his left hand moving to rest on his chest while his right hand dragged itself firmly down his face; the picture of mental and emotional exhaustion. He took several firm breaths, finished off with a frustrated growl before swiftly getting to his feet. He should probably start serving his purpose in Undyne's house; boy does later come quickly.

|๏ ͟ل͜๏|

"I'm not complaining- or any- anything! But isn't this- isn't this a bit intense!" Papyrus asked as he tried his best to block and dodge attack after attack as Undyne rapidly swung her fists.

"if you're in a real fight with a hostile opponent, they won't go easy." Undyne said without breaking concentration as she continued to throw punches.

"Of course, I know, but that isn't happening right now." Said Papyrus as he steadily moved backwards in an effort to not get his jaw busted.

Undyne stopped and shrugged. "I Wasn't even trying…and I don't think you really are, either. This time you're on assault and I'll only block or dodge." She popped into a defences stance, ready to go again.

The fact Undyne felt she had to go easy and give him and advantage admittedly bruised Papyrus' ego slightly, but he went along with it anyway.

Undyne dodged and blocked effortlessly. So effortlessly that it could have been an unusual dance. Papyrus increased his effort.

"Come on! focus." Undyne shouted.

Papyrus kept trying to hit her, increasing the force of his strikes and speed, but he still couldn't make any progress.

"I cant!" Papyrus eventually said defeatedly, letting his arms drop, "You're too fast."

"Just cause you're hitting harder doesn't mean you'll do better. Brute strength doesn't automatically win a fight." Undyne said as she dropped her defensive stance.

"Really…? I sort of thought that's what you're all about." Papyrus said sheepishly.

"Ugh you sound like your brother." Undyne winced.

"Hmm…you think I sound like Sans, do you? Well in that case…hey is that an excuse to slack off?!" Papyrus shouted as he pointed over Undyne's shoulder.

Undyne automatically turned her head to see whether or not that actually was something there and just as she did, Papyrus dropped to the flaw and kicking Undyne's feet out from under her before tacking advantage of the situation by restraining her.

"Reverting to cheap and dirty tactics? You really do sound like Sans!." Undyne growled amusedly.

"'You shouldn't have let your guard down'; that's my impression of you." Papyrus countered with a tone of matching smugness.

"Oh you're going to get it now, Punk!." Undyne laughed before breaking free and pulling Papyrus into a ground scrap.

The two monsters struggled in the dirt for a few short moments like two kids fighting in the school yard, but Undyne was superior in strength, size, and tactic and was able to win the wrestling match swiftly.

"You've done an impression of Sans and I but I'm still waiting for yours" she challenged, " Can you do an impression of Papyrus admitting defeat and begging for mercy?" Undyne asked smugly.

"You wi- ouch! You win I give up!" Papyrus said in a tone mixed of laughter and pain.

Undyne released Papyrus from her hold, standing up and helping her victim to his feet.

"Ready to call it a day?." Undyne asked with an amused smirk.

"Yes…that would be nice." Papyrus answered, panting as he bent over and propped himself up with his hands on his knees.

Undyne chuckled lightly. "That was pretty good; you're getting better.".

"Really?...i mean…of course I am." Papyrus said heartily, followed by a drawn out, airy groan.

"Take your time, punk." Undyne accented with a heavy-handed pat to Papyrus' hunched shoulder, earning a glare from said skeleton.

Their attention was both caught by the flicking and then dying of the light coming from the house.

Undyne made a sound of confusion before heading towards the house to see what was going on and to possibly beat up a miserable little dwarf.

"…" Papyrus stared wordlessly before straitening up his posture.

"What are you doing?" Undyne asked as she swung the door open like a SWAT crew coming to arrest someone.

"I'm stealing your pipes; they're great for smoking herbs" Sans said in a preoccupied concentrated tone, not taking his attention off what he was doing over by the void in the wall.

Undyne stared in silence, a mix between speechless from being weirded out and from confusion.

"I'm fixing the electrical system!" Sans said, as if it were obvious, which it was, give or take.

"Oh…ok"

"How did you do this?" Sans said in referral to his project, "Whatever you used, it was probably metal and you should have been electrocuted pretty really _he-ckin_ death-by-electrocution bad." His short glance at her acted as the question mark to the statement(despite the darkness of the room).

"Guess I didn't feel it. I'm too powerful, I guess." Undyne shrugged smugly

"Yeah…or maybe you were already brain dead, ay." Sans chuckled with a smugness to match her own.

"Maybe. If I recall correctly, it happened just after I saw you. So that makes sense."

"Heeeewhewhew…" Sans chuckled, shaking his head slightly, still keeping his eyes on the open-wall surgery he was performing by the light of the orange flames he has mustered on his right hand like a glove. "I can finish this today but ill have to patch up the wall next time. Till then, you can just hang a mirror over it, that way, whenever you look at it, you'll be looking at a solid brick wall."

"Or I could hang up a picture of you; you're so unnoticeable that people wont even know the hole exists." Undyne countered.

"Oof. I hav'ta admit that was pretty good. Your roasts are normally so weak." Sans said with a fake tone of disappointment, still not looking up.

"You know what else is weak?" Undyne said intently with the confidence and air of a predator about to go in for the kill.

"My tolerance for you two and you silly game!" Papyrus interrupted as he finally came inside, the majority of the dirt brushed off his person.

"Chill out, its just a silly game, Papyrus" Sans said, finally looking around to address his brother, "…wait you already said that…I mean it in a different way…or do we both mean it in the same way…I don't know…nevermind." Sans waved it off and turned back to his work.

The two near the door way shared a brief, confused look.

"What are you doing? You better not be trying to set Undyne's house on fire." Papyrus said in referral to the only light source in the house.

"No I'm stealing pipes" Sans said "This is just for lighting cause its hard to see when there aren't any lights." Sans said

"You're stealing pipes?!" Papyrus shouted.

Sans didn't answer, instead he tried to hold back a very satisfied grin.

"You can't just steal someone's pipes, Sans!" The great but poor Papyrus was distraught yet mad at the same time; People were often multitaskers in mood when it came to dealing with Sans.

By this point, Undyne couldn't help but find it funny, too.

"Why are you people laughing?!"

"It was just a joke, man, chill out." Sans chuckled.

"I don't see what is so funny about stealing someone's property." Papyrus scorned, his words sounding like they were shaking their head disapprovingly- that is, if words had heads.

"You're right;" Sans said as he bit his lip "I'm sorry, Papyrus." Apologising for laughing at his brother's childlike ignorance.

"Undyne is the one you should be apologising too, not me." Said Papyrus.

"I'm sorry, Undyne." Sans said with a bark of laughter at the end as his composure ran out.

Undyne was laughing anyway, the whole situation had degraded very quickly, and Sans had stopped working a while ago. Papyrus' mood had remained distraught but had traded in being mad for confusion; confusion was very fitting right now.

"You know what? Forget this. I'm not even going to try understand what is going on right now." Said Papyrus in surrender. "And if you're quite done- looking like idiots, it would be nice if you could finish whatever you're doing so we can get you away from terrorising people." He directed towards his brother.

The two monsters made an effort to reign in their laughter as a courtesy to Papyrus.

"I am just about done...except I'm missing a material to fix this properly," explained Sans, "So you're going to have to spend a week without power or water" he said, " but if you're as powerful as you claim, I'm sure you'll do just fine," he began to trail and think out loud, " but then again, you aren't the brightest monster" Sans' tone devolved from normal to laughter, again, "I doubt you have many lightbulb moments, so on second thought, you'll just have to live with it. Water, though…you're a fish; enough said." Sans laughed, making a sound reminiscent of a cross between a snort and a drawn out scoff.

"Sans oh my GOSH!" Papyrus roared, marching along a bee line directly to Sans. "You are unthinkable!" he shouted over any chance of a reaction Undyne could have given.

"No no I'm joking, its fine it all works!" Sans pleaded as his doom approached.

"I don't care!" Papyrus shouted as he slapped Sans over the head, "You are insufferably rude! You promised you wouldn't do this today!"

"First of all, I didn't promise, I said id try- and I did- but I can't help it if I see an opportunity! _Secondly…_ that…last part was the secondly..." He ended clumsily.

The interval between Sans' big-headed speech and Papyrus' rage was so small that Undyne had no time nor opportunity to make a comeback or response of any nature. Watching the smug little midget get chewed out by his brother was enough for now.

"Fix it right now, Sans or so help me." Papyrus threatened.

"Gee! Chill out, man, you look like you're about to rip my head off or something?." Sans audaciously challenged, raising an eyebrow with a smirk as he slinked away from the towering figure.

"Don't you test me, Sans!." Papyrus warned.

"I can do the rest, I know how to flip some switches" Undyne said deadpanned-ly( has stopped responding) "I'm sure it'll be a lot lighter in here once you get that walking mess out of here; he's so pessimistic that he makes his surroundings dark and depressed."

"Oh that was beautiful" Sans clapped his hands, shaking his head passionately. "If you weren't so- well, _you_ \- id marry you." The attitude was growing thick again. Papyrus looked confused and scared with those last words, his previous anger swiftly transitioning.

"Whatever, Ace, as if id marry you. Now get out of my house."

"Right ahead of you." Sans responded, "Come on, Papyrus, I think I can feel everyone's IQ dropping." He said, addressing Papyrus but clearly talking to Undyne as they proceeded towards the door.

"Better hurry then; you don't have much to lose." Undyne got in a final shot.

Sans dropped to one knee in front of Undyne and clasped his hands together mockingly reminiscently of a theatrical proposal of marriage. Papyrus looked confused and scared.

Undyne screwed up her face in disgust and kicked the aggravating skeleton out of her house.

( ͡ಥ ͜ʖ ͡ಥ)

"What in the Underground was all of that? Why would you want to marry her if you hate her so much?" Papyrus asked as they left Undyne's and headed on the route back to their own home.

"Ew, man. No." Sans said distraughtly, "I don't want to marry her, and I don't hate her. Its all just a big joke thingy." He said, brushing it off.

"I don't understand you and your ideas of friendship. According to you, everyone just makes silent agreements to act like pricks to each other." Papyrus said.

"Yep pretty much." Sans said as he kicked a rock to the side as they walked.

Papyrus shook his head, "I really don't see how people would like that…it sounds terrible...and why do you have to act so weird?"

"Hey if its broke, don't fix it." Sans said as he walked with his hands buried in his hoodie pockets, "that's my philosophy, I call it the 'I can't be bothered to do anything about nothing'" he waved a hand in front of him, as if presenting a statement in the air, "You like it?"

"I don't think that's how it goes…" Papyrus deadpanned.

"Yeah but it's how _I_ go. It's completely subjective; look who's the pessimist now?"

Papyrus scoffed. Sans smirked.

"…How was training stuff?".

That was all It took to get Papyrus' mind off the mood and subject to going a hundred miles an hour across multiple topics which lasted all the way home.

 **Ah frick im done.**

 **Welp theres another piece of senseless trash; just the way I like it.**

 **Anyways, I have no idea wth im doing and I hope no one I know will ever find this and trace it back to me. For those wondering wth you just read and why the heccque that whole interaction happened, my answer for you is I have no idea. I just like roasting people. It also prolyl why they all are out of character, I said I knew what I was doing with Sans- and I still do maybe- but my instinct to fit in any kind of joke wherever I can over rules anything else. Undyne wasn't supposed to be this savage but those lines were kinda funny.**

 **My plan is to always have two chapters ready and one being written when I post a chapter, so that's basically the posting schedule, fam.**

 **Plz leave a comment, follow if you find this mildly ok in any way because I feel like im talking to the void lol**

 **Cya**


	3. Thats a lot of filler

**Yeet hello this is my first story ever(apart from a PAW patrol one I wrote to be a troll). This story is sort of the point of view of the monsters during the time we see in the game.**

 **There wont be any swearing(unless you gonna tell my mum I said heck, damn, dang, crap, frick, and poopybuttface). And there wont be any sex or whatever. This is rated highish cause it will have slightly graphic violence later, but mainly because it takes an intimate dive into mental illness and other sensitive things like child abuse and suicide. Some people have begun to glorify such things and want to have them, thinking its cool or makes you like Sans-kun or something; this is dangerous because it will normalises life destroying things and makes people care less. So I want to provide an intimate first person look at it to show what its really like and clear some stigma.**

 **Its set in an AU called InherentTale cause I like the word and more normal sounding words that were still relevant were taken. This AU is sort of 'sister universe' to UT. By that I mean there are AUs like swap and fell, which use Undertale as a canvas, only changing some things. IT(frick lol nice work me) is like another canvas, the whole universe is quite different, so you could, for example, have UnderFell and InherentFell(catch me cringing each time I say 'inherent'. Oof).**

 **So on to how this AU is different: starting from basics and working our way out, in this universe, monsters kind of physically exist on two planes of existence, to the eye of anyone that isn't a monster, most monsters look like humans, each to a different degree, but every monster does have some sign that gives them away as a monster. When a monster looks at another, they can see them in both ways, monstrous appearance and human-like appearance at the same time.**

 **The idea for this Au formed when I was trying to find a logical way for the skeletons to move, talk, breathe, bleed, eat, ect. I was like 'hey maybe their guts are in another dimension'(although they should be able to bleed cause blood is made in the bones), which just ended up becoming them existing in two dimensions 0_o. I also wanted to stray from the 'living in a game' view of it, it just didn't seem realistic and didn't allow the strange beauty of organic life and existence. So because of this, I threw most of it through logic and realistic reasoning so now its more…authentic and less apathetical(?).**

 **A lot of things like the environment, magic, souls, and other stuff are explained scientifically to a degree, but ill say more on that later cause its not important right now.**

 **Where in the game the mountain is a single mountain, this mountain is actually a chain of mountains, holding a population of around 350,000 monsters.**

 **The characters may seem a bit OOC, and that's true cause it hard to decide what they may do, choosing between personality and way of thinking. But in the case of Sans at least, I know what im doing with him, trust me.**

 **And also, this AU as a whole is a bit edgy as in a bit darker but also all the characters are sort of savage cause I cant control myself. Sans is normally thought of as telling knock knock jokes and puns, this take on him is more like general whit and savagery cause I cant help it. Its gonna feel weird and a bit wrong, but trust me, its still him, just in a different light.**

 **Anyways, ill explain it further later on. For now, just read the story and don't hate me XD X(.**

 **Oh And the original characters, world, and concept belong to Toby Fox, I only 'own' this AU and emotional messes injected into this story.**

Well that was an…interesting story.

Sans snapped the book closed and put it back in what probably wasn't its place on the shelf.

The book was definitely up for interpretation: the story had strange pacing and if he deciphered it correctly, it ended with him having a daughter and living the rest of his life hiding from the law with her. This book definitely came from the surface. Humans had weird taste in literature.

Then again, he had only flipped through it; as if he'd actually use his break time reading that book.

He continued on his original task, searching through the titles stacked on the shelves. He was more or less familiar with most of them due to repetition of this exercise, but new books appeared now and then.

He followed up the shelf over to a label that said 'Fiction'. He swore under his breath; no wonder he couldn't find what he was looking for, how did he even end up in this aisle?.

"That's a bad word"

Sans jumped inside his head. He turned and looked down to see a little kid staring at him.

"Sorry?..." he asked, "…oh!" he exclaimed with realisation "um…yeah you're right…sorry about that, was just that i…"

This was sort of weird.

"…urm seeya"

He said in a way as if only half talking to the kid as he stepped backwards and spun around into the other aisle and walked briskly down it.

The kid, a bird monster with dusty brown hair, followed him.

"I cant find my mum, do you know where she is?" the child asked, moving at a faster pace to catch up with him.

"I don't know, man…where did you last see her?" Sans asked distractedly, still trying to get away.

"She was around there" the child said as he pointed towards the front.

Sans rolled onto his tip toes for a moment to look over the shelves in the direction the kid had pointed. He saw a woman, also a bird monster, talking to someone.

"She's still over there." Sans said with a slight tone mixed up of confusion and weirded out as he looked down at the kid.

"Oh…thanks, mister." the kid said as he ran off to his mum.

Sans pulled a confused expression for a second and then continued on his route.

Once he found a book that was partly what he was looking for, he took it to the front desk of the library and put the book on the counter.

Diego turned from whatever it was he was looking at, looked at Sans, down at the book, and then turned again to whatever he was doing with a heavy sigh.

"You can get that book, Sans, when you return those other five that are overdue by two months" Diego said sluggishly in a tone of disinterest.

"Two months? I think you're exaggerating. Tell you what: you let me get this book now, and ill bring it back when its only two weeks overdue" Sans said with a hopeful smile, nudging the book across the desk towards Diego.

"That's quite ambitious for you, Sans. You really think you can manage that? Don't want to strain your responsibility." Diego said, still not looking at him or making any move to leave what he was doing, which was probably just browsing Ugly Sweaters R Us. "You can have the book when you pay your fines and bring back all the books you seem to think you own."

" _OR_ you could let me get this book right now and ill go home and look for the books and bring them back next time I pass by." Sans said persistently.

"Next time? You live five minutes away and you pass by multiple times a day and yet we both know its going to take you at least four days." He said with a bit of a snaring smirk. "and 'find'? you mean you don't even read the books?" Diego said, finally turning his head and looking at him.

Sans paused for a moment, thinking for a slight second. This much delay for a comeback from him was a rare if not triumphant occasion.

"Uuuuuuh…of course I read them, I just…okay _how about_ -"

"Look whatever, Sans. Just take the book and try bring them all back before I retire. Okay?." Diego sighed, "Its not like there are tonnes of peoples in Snowdin that are interested in whatever it is you're interested in." he looked back at the computer screen.

Sans' face brightened "Ill try. Thanks" He chuckled as he grabbed the book off the counter and made to leave with a lively step.

"Welcome. Now get out of my library."

"You mean librarby?." Sans said with smirk and spin as he walked backwards.

"Don't you test me, boy!." Diego warned with a growl.

ᕕ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ᕗ

He finally had his book, which took about fifteen minutes in total to get. That meant that any minute, Papyrus would be looking for him and preparing his next lecture.

He was incorrect, because Papyrus was already here. It would appear Papyrus was getting familiar with this routine.

Sans stuffed the book into the pocket of his blue hoodie and began to walk into the less open areas of the town as he saw Papyrus storming in a bee line towards Grillby's.

As soon as Papyrus entered the building, Sans began to run back towards his station in the woods. He was nearly out of town when Papyrus stepped out of Grillby's, looked around with a pinched brow, caught sight of his brother's fleeting form, screamed out his name, and began chasing him at the speed of light.

Sans gave a yelping laugh as he picked up his pace and zoomed as fast as he could. This was always the best part.

Although Sans was reasonably fast at top speed, Papyrus had longer legs, more stamina, and a lot of practice. Taking into account Sans' head start, it only took two minutes before Papyrus was no more than ten metres away.

"Sans you cant play that card this time!. I've already caught you so you cant pretend you were there the whole time!." Papyrus yelled as he began closing in. they had just passed Greater Dog's area.

Sans just laughed.

"Stooop!" Papyrus cried as he leaped and tackled Sans.

The two skidded and tumbled through the snow for a good twenty metres. Papyrus rolled onto his back with his brother in a headlock.

"You buffoon!" Papyrus shouted over his brother's laughing. "I cant believe you tried that _again_!".

"Oh hey, bro" Sans giggled with a full smile, "whatcha' doin'?."

Papyrus growled, still not releasing his hold on Sans. "what am i-?! I should ask you that! What are you doing slacking off your job, leading me on some silly chase and pretending none of that happened!." Sans' partly chocked laughter continued. "I will never understand you and I'm not sure I want to anyway." Papyrus said exasperated as he released Sans, shoving him off and standing up.

Sans remained lying in the turned-up snow, still laughing.

"For goodness sakes, Sans. Pull yourself together" Papyrus scolded as he brushed off snow and straightened his attire.

"Come on that was fun, man. Admit it. Come on" Sans laughed as he slowly got up.

Papyrus glared at his brother as he fixed his brown hair back into its usual well-groomed style before a smile cracked at the corner of his lips. "I suppose so." Papyrus admitted begrudgingly.

"Aw man are you smiling?" Sans laughed "I can see you smiling, man."

Papyrus looked away as he fought off a full smile, creating a smirk. "you're so stupid." papyrus muttered, trying to be mad as he crossed his arms. Causing Sans to laugh harder.

"Stop laughing." Papyrus grumbled.

"Stop being so uptight, yah hypocrite." Sans smirked

"I'm not. You're not serious enough about this."

It wasn't often when they were both in the same expressive mood. Whenever Papyrus was happy or energetic, Sans was moody and quiet. Whenever Sans was playful or rambunctious, Papyrus was an up-tight killjoy

Sans pulled a goofy 'oh really' face at Papyrus, Papyrus glared back. This lasted for all of six seconds before Papyrus cracked a smile a shoved his hand at Sans' face.

"Come on we need to get back to work, you idiot." Papyrus said in a bright and barely disciplined tone as he shook his head and began walking to the original destination. Sans put his hands in his hoodie pocket as he followed his brother. Both smiling as they went, whether or not they wanted to.

despite their often polar moods, there were moments like this when they both were just happy. They both treasured these moments.

"Sans, as much as I enjoy your little game and as much as I think its good for you-no listen to me-" Papyrus held up a hand in response to Sans now bitter expression "You actually do need to do your job. If you get paid for it, you do actually have to do it, Sans."

"I do do my job, Papyrus."

"Really? Well then what were you doing so far away from your post?." Papyrus raised an eyebrow as he looked expectantly for an answer from his brother.

"…patrolling. Those humans could be anywhere."

Papyrus sighed. "Well if you're not going to give me a proper answer for what you were doing, you can at least do your job properly _now_."

Sans gave no reply, only glancing up briefly at his big little brother and then at the ground ahead of him. Papyrus stared down at his little big brother contemplatively for a moment before also looking ahead in silence. The mood wasn't heavy, but it wasn't as comfortably light as moments ago. The rest of the short walk was spent in silence other than the noise created by creatures that inhabited the surrounding woods.

( ͡ʘ╭͜ʖ╮͡ʘ)

Once the last station before the Ruin doors was in sight, Papyrus broke the silence:

"We only have about two and a half hours left. Can you pleeeeeeeease try not wander off?."

"My gosh, Papyrus. I'm not that bad; believe it or not, I actually _can_ do things."

"I didn't say you could do anything, Sans, I said you can't take this seriously. One day a human may come through here and you're our first line of defence and…"

And there it was. That stupid term and the good old lecture he had heard a thousand times. Maybe it was partly his fault because his actions deserved it, he wasn't so irresponsible that he couldn't admit his own flaws, in fact, he _wasn't_ that irresponsible, he just didn't take his job serious because it was hard to. The likelihood of a human ever coming through there in his life time wasn't very large. He only really did it because it was important to Papyrus and it was a form of income, no matter how boring it was; he was a very patient person and he didn't mind being paid to sit around, but even he got restless. Besides, all the sitting made his butt hurt.

"- so can you please just try act like its important?." Papyrus finished his rant slightly pink in the face from talking so much with so few breaths.

"Yeah ok sure whatever I'm sorry" Sans said with his hands held in the universal symbol for surrender as he walked towards his post. "ill try, now go away."

"I'll go away when you say you promise y-"

"Yeah ok I promise now go awa-"

"You didn't mean that I kno-"

"OK well I mean it now so go aw-"

"No you still don't mea-"

"OK fine whatever, ma-"

"you better mea-"

"I do"

"Good!"

"Good!"

"Good!"

"Now go away!"

"I am!"

"Good!"

"Good!"

"Good!"

"You better not fall asleep!."

"I wont!."

"if you do I will hit you!."

" _I wont!_."

"Good!."

"Good!."

"Good!."

They continued shouting 'good' back and forth as Papyrus headed back to his own post until they had to nearly scream to hear each other faintly.

Sans sat down heavily with a sigh. Well that had been fun. They should definitely do it again; he was getting faster, too.

He pulled the book out of his pocket and examined it properly. He had almost exhausted the local libraries supply of books that had anything to do with magic; ranging from scientific to solely religious and even to some things that seemed a little 'off brand' and shady. He had been doing research just to fill the time (he loved doing research but not following up on it. Discovery and learning was the best part of it) but he felt he may be on the verge of a breakthrough. To what, he knew not, but it had potential to be something proper, like proper beneficial proper.

The Snowdin library only had so much available. He knew somewhere where he could get exactly what he needed, and it wouldn't be hard to get either, but he didn't want to have to do that yet; it was a different kind of hard.

Due to the fact he had read nearly all available books on the broadest range of the topic, sixty percent of the stuff in the book was old news that he already knew, but it was still interesting enough; better than doing his job and waiting for legendary humans to just wander up a mountain and just happen to fall in without dying and then come this specific way. But if it made Papyrus happy, he'd do nearly anything.

"SANS!"

"What the he…!"

"You fell asleep that's what!."

His shoulder hurt. He hated waking up like this: when you're so tired that you feel sick and when you start dozing you feel like magnets are pulling on your brain and weights are on your eyes; and then when you wake up suddenly, you're so disoriented that you feel you cant breathe and gravity is trying to crush you. Maybe that was a bit dramatic or maybe he was slowly dying, but that's how it felt and it sucked. Papyrus' shouting wasn't great, either.

"I cannot believe you!."

Sans pulled himself up and willed himself back into the land of the living and a particular way of perceiving reality. Great, the weird thoughts. He had a rule to never think about anything complex before you go to sleep or after you wake up: especially not when you're sick. If you did, you'd have slow, painful, half-lucid dreams or you'd wake up feeling like you're in limbo and loaded on ten kilos of hallucingenics…not that knew what that was like. Gosh he hated the weird thoughts. Are you talking to yourself again?.

"Sans!."

"urm…yeah…?"

Man, he felt like Hell.

"…are you alright?." concern

He took a deep breath and blinked a few times.

"…yeah im good…sorry, just tired." he said as he pinched the bridge of his nose with his eyes squeezed closed.

Before, it was like he was blind but also wasn't, he was okay now, though. Papyrus was there, it was a tad darker, maybe.

"Wait can we go home now?." Sans said as he looked up.

"Yes, I suppose."

"Nice."

Sans stood up, the movement being slightly too quick and unnoticeably losing his balance for a second before everything was good again, all be it he was a little groggy.

"Come on then, lets go." Papyrus said.

Sans stretched and then followed beside his brother. Finally, the worst part of the day was over. Wait.

"What day is it, Papyrus?."

"…Wednesday. Why? Papyrus asked with a touch of confusion.

"Nothing jus' won'ring if you had training today" Sans said.

'Oh OK. No, that's tomorrow."

"Oh joy." Sans sighed, with a hint or sarcasm mixed in there but mostly future exhaustion.

"Come on, Sans; I know you two aren't best friends but she isn't that bad." Papyrus defended, "If you ask me, I think you're more the problem than she is." he muttered.

This time Sans groaned. "I know I aggravate her but she aggravates me just as much. Our personalities aren't exactly neighbouring puzzle pieces, if you get what I mean. Besides, no one gets hurt; at the end of the day its just funny."

"If you say so…" Papyrus shook his head.

Sans could feel his brother's frustration and disappointment. Those emotions immediately transferred to himself; that wasn't okay.

"OK I won't say anything rude or insult her intelligence or highlight the endless list of ways she i-".

"SANS!." Papyrus shouted.

"OK OK I'm sorry!." Sans laughed "But honestly, if it makes you happy ill stop being 'the cause of the problem'.".

"Thank you."

They walked together in comfortable silence in the serenity of the silent white forest thick with shadowing, tall trees, bleeding with shades of vibrant to dark blues and cyans. By now they had passed Papyrus' station and were coming towards Doggo's post. Without verbal communication, the two skeleton monsters both silently looked in unison to see if the gruff husky dog monster would notice them as they passed by.

Busy watching Doggo sit at his post with a smoking biscuit in his mouth with his arms folded, Sans didn't pay attention to where he was walking; a hollow under the snow(made by vegitoids or other creatures) gave way as Sans stepped on it. Falling to one side with an 'oof' as his right leg sunk in up to his knee. Papyrus, who also wasn't paying attention due to also looking to the side as he walked, yelped as he was caught off guard by his shorter brother dropping out of the corner of his eye.

His eyes may have been closed or maybe just looked down, but now Doggo was scanning the surrounding terrain with his icy blue eyes.

"Who's there?!" he growled, standing up.

Papyrus and Sans both looked at each other. Sans signalled to Papyrus to be silent.

"I can smell you…Sans is that you?!" Doggo immediately became less on edge and more of just annoyed.

All sat in silence for a split second before Sans answered in some weird voice designed to be a bad disguise "…no…this is your…optometrist here to tell you tha-"

He was cut off by Papyrus whacking him over the head with a very disapproving expression on his face.

"I'm sorry, Doggo, please forgive my brother's rudeness." Papyrus said as he stood up from kneeling on one knee next to his brother who wasn't looking the smallest bit apologetic.

"Papyrus…? Oh my dog…Sans I hate you, you moron…!" Doggo growled, now looking entirely annoyed and ready to plant his fist in a specific person's face.

But of course, Sans wasn't quite done yet.

"oh, Doggo…!" he faked surprise as he climbed back to his feet "I didn't know that was you…you see the thing is," he restrained a laugh at the unintentional jab at the dog monster's visual impairment, "I didn't see you there." The last words came out at a higher pitch and the sentence ended with a high pitched, wabbly giggle that sounded like he was about to cry.

Papyrus barely restrained from punching Sans back into the snow. He couldn't believe this.

Doggo and Papyrus both exploded into heated shouts and the whole situation descended into verbal open fired noise with Sans as the only recipient.

Doggo looked like he was about to get physical as Papyrus roughly grabbed his brother by his hood and dragged him away face down in the snow as he showered endless apologies to Doggo.

"What is wrong with you today?!." Papyrus shouted after they were a little farther away from the fuming dog monster.

"What do you mean?," Sans asked as he lifted his face out of the snow so that he was being pulled along looking like a sliding penguin.

"Acting so insufferable and obnoxious!.".

"Its fine, I know Doggo and Doggo knows me, its like an unspoken agreement that that is the way we interact.".

"No. No, it is not 'fine'!" Papyrus marched on forward without showing any intention to stop making a path leading all the way to Snowdin town with his brother's body. Sans didn't seem to mind much, though. Of course he didn't; he was annoying like that. "And even if it is," Papyrus continued, "its stupid and rude and as much as you don't care about what people think of you, our reputations are connected, and I do care what people think about me. Its called dignity- but you wouldn't understand what that is.".

"I'm not the one dragging myself through the snow." Sans didn't even sound like he was taking any of this seriously, but then again, he rarely did. "Speaking of that, can you not stretch my hoodie? Its one of the few things that I take seriously.".

Absolutely insufferable. Papyrus wordlessly released Sans to faceplant back in the snow as he walked around him and continued on to town, pulling Sans by his ankle. Of course Sans was laughing.

Papyrus was still trying to be mad, but he gave up; he didn't see any use in staying angry when it wouldn't do anything. But, now that he thought about it, the whole situation _was_ kind of funny; and he hated it!. It was always like this: Papyrus always got angry easily but calmed down too quickly because Sans had some stupid gift of being annoying and infuriating but also funny- he'd rather live his brother's life style than admit it out loud- but he found him admirably goofy in a way that he loved and hated. He always found himself fighting a grin after these kinds of things. It was always the same.

"Ouch I think I got a splinter." Sans stated from out of Papyrus' sight, breaking the silence as they went across the bridge that was never approved for safe use.

"Oh really? Poor you. Well now you know what it's like to constantly have something or someone getting under your skin." Papyrus said, his amusement slipping into his tone.

Sans made that stupid laugh that sounded like some kind of explosion in his nose* and then descended into what sounded like he was crying in pain while running out of breathe. Sometimes he hated that laugh, sometimes he adored it, of course he would never admit that either. This whole day had been ridiculous.

They were _finally_ back in town now. It was the busier time of the day, maybe a bit of public embarrassment would put Sans in check, but he gave up hope on that possibility as Sans waved to and greeted people the went past. Some who were clearly familiar with the brothers returned the greeting as if nothing was unusual about dragging an adult through the middle of town. Others just stared, not surprised at all. More than half of Snowdin knew Sans on a personal level, a quarter knew Papyrus, but everyone was familiar with their antics and knew their names due to them constantly being shouted out at each other as they did who knows what next.

"Will you stop already?." Papyrus scolded as Sans shouted "BYE" to no one in particular as they left the main part of town and headed towards their own abodes, which was on the farther edge of town. "I honestly don't know what's gotten into you today.".

"Oh man I didn't realise it was illegal to be in a good mood, what's the fine?" Sans quipped as he rested his chin on his folded arms as they ploughed through the white snow.

"Whatever." Papyrus sighed as he rolled his eyes.

Finally at their house, Papyrus dragged Sans up the couple steps and dropped him at the front door, unlocked it, and went inside.

"You just got a free ride, you better pay me for my services." Papyrus called back.

It took twenty seconds of mental war before Sans mustered the will-power to get up and walk inside, closing the door behind him as he brushed of all the snow, twigs, and various over collectables he had obtained along the way.

"Can you please not do that inside?; put it all back outside." Papyrus grimaced.

"What if I don't want to?." Sans smirked as he looked up.

"Well then you can stay outside until you change into something less filthy." Papyrus answered back. All these years living with Sans, more or less raised by Sans, he had learnt how to combat his brothers witty attitude to a degree.

"I wasn't the one that dragged me through the snow for half an hour" Sans muttered as he went upstairs. The clicking of the lock on his door signified that he probably wouldn't be seen again for at least three hours, perhaps the rest of the day if he managed to slink away without Papyrus catching him.

Papyrus sighed. He didn't like how much time his brother spent alone hiding away in his room or the 'shed' outside.

Papyrus sat down on the lumpy old couch in the living room and pulled a sudoku out from under a stack of library books that were possibly years overdue; he wouldn't be surprised if they were. That wasn't his problem though, he was going to spend his down time doing non-stressful things and not worrying about other people's messes that they refused to fix.

He had already solved three in half an hour; a very productive rate. His attention was starting to stray, though. Maybe he could clean the house…or reorganise his wardrobe and action figures…maybe he could take up a new hobby…knitting seemed cool. Maybe Undyne knew something about that. Maybe Undyne was doing something interesting?.

He pulled out his phone and called Undyne's number. It rang for a while, but he was used to that. Undyne was often doing something that kept her hands tied, making too much noise, or just not picking up on purpose. For people that seemed so different, Undyne and Sans shared a lot of similar traits. The ringing stopped after nearly a minute.

"Hey Papyrus."

"Hey, Undyne!"

"What you want, Punk?." her voice panted through the speaker.

"Just wondering what you are doing right now?."

"Just a light work-out. Why?."

"I have a question for you."

"Shoot."

"Do you by any chance know how to knit?."

"Pfff no. Why makes you think I can knit?." Undyne asked with an amused tone.

"Well you know how to do stuff I want to do."

"You mean two or three things?. I thought Sans was the one that has a bunch of random skills; why don't you ask him." Some background noise came through as she spoke.

"Good idea!...HEY SANS!." Papyrus shouted, not taking the phone down from his face.

"SANS!" he called again.

"what?."

"WHAT DID YOU SAY!?"

"I said 'WHAT"!" Sans screamed back as he yanked open his door, tired but in the mood for messing with people.

"OH OK!" Papyrus screamed.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" Sans continued screaming even though they could both hear each other.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW TO KNIT?!" Papyrus didn't seem to be aware of the fact he was still shouting.

"NIT!? WHAT THE HELL?! IS THAT MEANT TO BE AN INSULT?!" Sans screamed at the top of his lungs despite the fact he was making eye contact with Papyrus.

"NO I MEAN KNIT AS IN WITH YARN!"

"NO, I DON'T KNOW HOW TO Knit as in yarn" Sans' voice broke and he laughed the rest of his reply.

"OH OK."

"Stop shouting." Sans laughed as we went back in his room and locked the door again.

"No, he doesn't know how to knit." Papyrus said back to the phone.

"Uh yeah I know, I heard" Undyne said "You must have really tolerant neighbours." The last part sounded more like a statement.

"No, they just gave up on complaining."

Undyne responded with a bubble of laughter

"Hm…hey did you see the new episode of CWAKR?" Papyrus asked with a new enthusiasm.

"Yeah, it was okay."

The conversation continued on, jumping from various topics as they usual do.

"Well anyway, I gotta go now." Undyne said.

"Oh…yeah ok…" The disappointment was clear in Papyrus' voice "I should probably go, too, actually…see you tomorrow."

" Seeya, Punk!." She hung up.

Papyrus sighed. He enjoyed talking to Undyne, she actually seemed to enjoy it, too. She felt like a genuine friend and maybe that gave him comfort for the lack of friends he had; how many friends does one really need anyway?.

He stood up from the couch and kind of just stood there, thinker about what he could do to fill the next few hours. The thing was with Papyrus, rather than making a list, he would think up one or two ideas and just go with what seemed the better of the options. He did a few things here and there, cleaning up small messes and throwing out the 'uneaten' shredded cheese Sans had left for his pet rock. After his phone call with Undyne he was feeling in a social mood, so he spent some time on his computer in his room. It was pretty boring and uninteresting trying to fill empty space and time with random stuff, the lack of structure felt sloppy and I'm honestly just trying to make it to 5, 000 words so give me a break, guys.

He spent an unknown amount of unproductive time seeking social interaction online but didn't really get much of it done. He could have done something more beneficial, but his yearning for friends was his weak spot. Either he was unaware of this or he wasn't willing to admit it.

He doubted Sans was still in his room, he had probably gone off somewhere or passed out under his bed or something; his brother was weird like that. Either way he would probably be spending the rest of the night alone, and that's exactly what he did. After eating reheated food from the refrigerator for his dinner, he went to bed around nine o'clock. Alone.

 **Oof that was sad**

 **Welp I hope you didn't find it complete crap and perhaps even enjoyed it. The first few chapters will be slowish and uneventful but due to the nature of this story, its supposed to kind of slow; this isn't telling a story, its just narrating whats happening in a period of time, a bit of a less common story format.**

 **If you liked this at all, please consider following me, I swear it gets better!.**

 **Comments would be awesome, id love to hear any thoughts or ideas, ideas would be brilliant and helpful and another person's perspective is incredibly valuable.**

 **cya.**


	4. Reunion

**Chapter 4**

 **Reunion**

Alphys had slept in, which was something she did nearly everyday, if she were honest. She had been binging an anime and had fallen asleep at around episode 9. When she woke up, nestled in blankets and an empty chip packet, the show was well into the next series. Her eyes went wide and her heart jumped as she desperately searched for the remote; she hated spoilers!.

Once she had turned it off, she sat back into her nest of blankets and pillows with a sigh. That little rush had woken her up. Her stomach rumbled, calling for food, but right now a shower sounded better.

She rolled back up to her feet and slowly made the trip to the bathroom.

After a long, warm shower, she put on a clean pair of pants and a t-shirt with an anime character printed on it. She brushed her teeth and combed her hair, scrapping the short golden blonde locks into s small pony tail and clipped her fringe out of her face in that way that anime characters always did; she liked that look. Finally, she went and searched for her glasses in the mountain scape, ant colony-like structure of blankets. Luckily they weren't broken. She rubbed them with the hem of her shirt and put them on her face.

Mettaton had moved in with her after he started getting famous, seeing as it matched best with the idea of her being his creator and him not getting swamped by fans. Sometimes he did go out, though. He went out under disguise to go do 'glamorous business' that apparently she wouldn't understand. That was okay, though, because she could do with some alone time without him going on about this thing and that thing and singing and whining about something that wasn't that bad and could easily be fixed. He was so dramatic, it was over-bearing at times, but his company was also quite nice at times, too: he would watch anime with her sometimes, resonating with the dramatic and probably gay characters(after a particular anime he had started trying to learn French), and sleep-overs were pretty fun, where at he would style her hair, makeup and nails. He was a pretty fun guy.

Anyways, he would be coming back later that day, so until then she had to reclaim her share of the noise that she made before Mettaton started visiting and moved in.

Alphys Went to the fridge and opened it, examining the options which consisted of left overs, the salad mix that we all buy just to not feel guilty but know we wont touch it and will just end up throwing away once it goes bad, an empty carton of eggs, an almost empty carton of milk, and some random fruits and vegetables. OK maybe she'd eat later. Instead she had a mug of cold tap water, which was impressive, considering she lived in Hotland.

As she drank her water, she looked around. She didn't really have anything planned for today and the place was a growing mess that could do with some cleaning…the sink was pilling up with dishes, the garbage needed to be taken out, everything could do with some vacuuming just to name a few things. She looked at the bowl on the floor near the door: it was empty, which meant that little white dog must've come last night. That dog was always running around everywhere, unless of course there were more than one, either way, no one could catch it, so she had started leaving food for it. The empty bowl reminded her that she hadn't fed them yet. She looked at the clock hanging on the wall: it was nearly half past eleven!. Just then, there was a knock at the door.

( ͡°( ͡° ͜ʖ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ʖ ͡°) ͡°)

Sans had been woken by Papyrus at six, which sucked because he had been having a dream that was okay, which, between how much he slept and the subjects on his mind, was a rare occasion, only happening once a every two weeks or so.

Papyrus had raved about being home late and swearing he had been on the couch and this and that and complaining about Sans sleeping in his clothes from yesterday, which was something he did a lot: pyjamas had stopped existing for Sans years ago, he was a based as heck guy and as long as no one cared, he could get away with wearing the same clothes all week if he wanted, only really changing his clothes if he was wearing jeans cause it sucked sleeping in jeans. It probably wouldn't hurt to improve his hygiene a few notches, but he was okay with it, so it was okay for now.

It was actually a good thing Papyrus had woken him because he had a shift at his post in Hotland at eight.

He did his most to get ready, which was the bare minimum: brushing his teeth, putting on his shoes, and combing his messy hair with his hand. After that he went on the path to Hotland, which required a trip up the river and a hike through the rocky layout of the volcanic terrain.

And now he was here, sitting here doing nothing. Instead of actually sitting at his post thingy, he was slumped on the ground, leaning against the front of the thingy.

It was pretty hot here, seeing as there was a lake of lava less than fifteen metres away, but skeletons were quite resistant to more extreme temperatures, which was probably why Undyne hired Papyrus and him, seeing as their tolerance for heat and cold was valuable.

The Dog division, who were assigned to Snowdin due to their resistance to the cold, were very friendly and nice to be around, while the division in Hotland-which consisted almost entirely of reptilian and piscine monsters, due to their partly exothermic nature- were a lot less approachable, so he didn't really mix with them much.

He definitely felt fine with not doing this job, because how likely was it that a human would get past all the guards in Snowdin, Waterfall, and all the other guards in Hotland before his post?. Of course, there could be other entrances into the underground, but all humans in the past had come through the same way: the Ruins.

Sans watched the lava bubble and churn, splashing up over the edges occasionally; there weren't any safety precautions around the edges, which was kind of concerning.

His mind was just wandering aimlessly from topic to topic, his shift had finished ten minutes ago, but he was just stalling. His head rolled from where it was leaning against the back of the outpost to face the large building in the distance…Welp! Guess its time to go home!.

' _No, come on, stop being stupid, you need to do this.'_

'But I don't want to do it!'

' _come on its not hard, you stupid as lil coward; this whole situation is your fault'_

'I know…how about I just go home and forget this ever happened?'

' _you've done that too many times, besides, this could be a good thing!'_

'My gosh, fine. Just shut up though, you're making me look crazy'

' _You do realise you're just talking to yourself in your head?'_

'Yes. Now shut up'

' _OK'_

'Good'

' _You're still talking!'_

'My Gosh this is dumb. Do normal people do this?'

' _I don't know; hopefully'_

'Well how has your day been?'

" _The same as yours cause were the same person and you're taking this too far'_

'I know but its what I do when I'm nervous'

' _Yeah I know that'_

'This has been going too long, we need to stop'

' _we?'_

'You know what I mean'

' _to be honest, I don't'_

'Yeah I know; neither do I '

"eeeehHeeh!"

Sans made a random sound so as to get his voice out of his head.

"That's better" He said to himself.

He had been having that single person conversation while walking to distract himself, and now he was here outside the lab.

He stared up the building and the looked at the door.

"Hell. Just do it. Don't even think about it, and just do it…aaahaahha" Sans said to himself in a low voice, making a scared whine. "Come on, man".

There was no bell or intercom or anything, so he took a few forceful breaths, and then knocked five times, before getting ready to turn and run as fast as he possibly could to go home and continue with life, forgetting this day ever happened. Yeah that sound good. Frick, too late.

( ° ͜ʖ °)

Alphys made the double doors slide open a crack, but couldn't see anything really.

"H-Hello…?"

"Um…Hi"

"urrmm…" Oh boy, "Who is this? C-can I h-help you?" She said as if it were a phone call or something, but she didn't want to show her face; you never know what might happen.

"Um…me…uhm are you-" the person coughed to clear their throat, "Are you Alphys?"

"..yeeeeeeah…?"

"Uhhm I was wondering if…I could...talk…to you…?"

Any outside observer would have laughed at how much their voices were both shacking, like a kid making a phone call by themselves for the first time.

Alphys squinted suspiciously, then opened the door wider and looked out, before her face dropped and she opened the door all the way.

The two monsters stared wordlessly at each other. One's jaw hanging open, the other's tense.

The person was a skeleton, not a lot taller than herself, with dirty blond hair and vibrant blue eyes filled with anxiousness. It _looked_ like _him_ ; how many skeletons were there in the underground that looked like _him_. He was even wearing the same blue hoodie as _him._

"S-Sans?" Her voice shook ridiculously.

"Yep" His voice cracked.

Her face melted from shock, her brows falling and pinching as her eyes welled up.

"Oh my- " Without thinking, she crossed the small distance between them and pulled him into a bone crushing(hehe lul geddit? That was an accident) hug.

Sans' expression followed suit and he hugged her back.

"I thought id never see you again!" Alphys began to sob into his shoulder.

" I know; im so sorry, I was so so stupid, its all my fault." He sobbed into her shoulder, both speedily moving from anxiety to joy.

"Yeah you kind of are." She laughed through a sob, "…I thought you'd be taller."

"…What?" Sans laughed, letting go of Alphys.

"I don't know, I guess I thought- I thought you would be taller by now." She giggled, wiping the translucent yellow tears from her face.

"Yeah, well you should see Papyrus!" Sans chuckled, drying the light blue-tinged streaks from his own face with his sleeve.

The conversation was progressing all over the place, too many feelings and questions for there to be any order or consistency right this moment.

"Oh, P-Papyrus!...my goodness there's s-so much to catch up about! Its been _so long._ " She said almost mournfully, "How old is he now?"

"Nineteen!." Sans said, amazed by his own words.

"NINETEEN?! He was _eleven_ last time I saw him!" Her eyes started to leak again, "A-and you were fifteen! You must be-"

"Twen'y three." He chuckled, almost bitterly.

" _Aaah t-this is so-o crazy!"_ Alphys shouted, putting her hands on her head. "o-oh man…!. Hey you-you want to come inside?" Her head trying to catch up with everything and right itself.

"Sure" he shrugged with a grin, his eyebrows pinched upwards.

Both had expressions mixed of fondness, disbelief, and joy.

/╲/\╭( ͡° ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° ͡°)╮/\╱\

They had both calmed down quite quickly, remaining in a jubilant mood. Alphys had apologised for her messy home, Sans said his wasn't any better. They both had laughed nostalgically at the fact that nothing had changed. They had exchanged a few other passing things, and now were.

"So-so" Alphys grasped in her mind, trying to order her thoughts, "why- why did you pick th-this time to come back?." Alphys asked with audible curiosity and elation.

"Well, first of all, I had to stop avoiding the last half of my life sooner or later, and also, I've been researching stuff and working on something but I've kind of hit a wall with it. I figured seeing you have access to the largest library in the underground, and the fact you created a _human soul_ that you might be able to help…and" Sans trailed, "I missed you, so…yeeeah." He had never been good at expressing fondness or affection towards others.

"O-oh um…I… _really_ missed you, too…" she smiled sadly, chuckling the emphasis in her words, " And…I suppose I may be- be able to help…depending on w-what it is." She fidgeted with her hands.

It would seem that the last 8 years hadn't changed their nerd dynamic, both falling into nerd talk, both sharing a passion that over-rode any of the other emotions that had just happened.

"Well uh…sort of just general magic and souls and their relationships with stuff…you know like, the limits and nature of it…yeah its kind of dumb." He chuckled nervously at the end.

"No no! that sounds really interesting…what have you got so far?." Said Alphys as she pushed her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose.

"Urrh well like," Sans was on edge. This was the first time he had really spoken to anyone about it. It was a bit of a personal thing and he was _incredibly_ private about anything related to his personal life, "Do you remember that time, just befor- actually never mind…um…well you know how elemental monsters can interact with their environment, and like, physically change their form?."

Alphys nodded.

"Well there's this fire guy I know, he can change his whole form into fire and transport himself through it, like use magic to pull himself apart; with a big enough fire it would be like teleportation, sort of."

Alphys nodded again.

"Well initially we all have a connection to our environment, and if we connected enough, like on a deep as level, we could control it? Like I know I can use telekinesis, but what if that's just the minimum of our abilities?." He felt so stupid saying it out loud.

"So what you're saying i-is that you could control matter by connecting with the universe through your soul?." She said as if having a revelation.

"Yeah and be able to control it on a level that you can pull apart your own form and reorganise it somewhere else…hypothetically you would be able to do almost anything…hypothetically"

Alphys' eyes were wide as she contemplated the idea. "It makes sense…it would be crazy…a-and dangerous but…absolutely fascinating!."

"Yeah, well the thing is…I've already done it- to a degree." Sans said.

"Wait really!?." Gawked Alphys.

"Yeah you remember that time when…yeah never mind that time…If I focus enough I can do small things, like make normal fire- not magical 'fire'- and control elements to small degrees but that's it so far." This felt really uncomfortable for him, but Alphys didn't seem to share the feeling.

"Th-that's amazing! Its incredible!"

"Yeah…but its more than just a trigger thing, there is a technical element and I need to know more about it. You remember the story about how the Barrier was made?" Sans asked.

Alphys nodded.

"Well somehow, someone found a way to activate human's souls; if they can do that, then surely there are some methods or something. That would be a good place to start…but! Seeing as you made Mettaton, you must know a _ton_ about the physical and technical composition of souls!." Sans expression was hopeful.

Alphys fidgeted. "U-u-um well there are p-probably so-ome o-old books or tomes about- about the h-humans a-a-and stuff…I-i ca-can show you the librar-ry a-and you can l-look for what- whatever you ne-ed." She smiled weakly.

"That would be amazing, thank you so much." He smiled confidently, attempting to reassure her of whatever, noticing the sudden spike in anxiety.

"I'll show you, come o-on…!" She said and motioned for him to follow, trying to speak over the banging that had started coming from the lower levels, "Ignore th-that sound…i-its just pipes."

"You sure its not some creepy creature crawling around?" Sans asked, "I've seen too many movies to believe that." He laughed.

"Ah-hahaha-haha ye-ah haha I know r-right." Her voice was growing increasingly unsteady and raising in pitch.

"Yeah nah, that makes sense: steam and exhausts and stuff; was just messing 'round." Sans said calmly, completely unmoved from the whole topic of conversation.

Alphys was about to have a heart attack.

The library was connected to where Asgore lived, seeing as it was the Royal Library, so it took a long trip there. It was a direct route with a transport thingy further along the way, but it was still a walk to there.

"Wowie" is what he exclaimed when seeing the lengthy tunnel. He couldn't help but smirk at how Papyrus' vernacular had influenced his own, "This looks really long, so we better be prepared for some awkward small talk. Its always less awkward if you address the fact; its one of my rules I live by."

"Yeah haha I remember that" Alphys laughed. "Oh I remember so many things…" her voice taking on a more longingful tone.

"Yeah…man theres so much to catch up on" Sans said, the conversation still being clumsily all over the place.

"So…" Sans grasped around in his mind, trying to find where to start, "whats happened in the last…eight years…" Sans squinted his right eye as he calculated the difference, "wow. Eight years." He shook his head.

"Oh um…lots of things… im sure its b-been a lot more i-interesting for you." Alphys said.

"Ah you know…just…hobo stuff." He said humorously.

"What sort of hobo stuff?" she asked.

"Hey I asked you first." Dodged.

"OK. Um…Well my parents retired a-and I finished my education and continued st-studying the fields I was interested in…nothing really happened for a-a while, then I started making Mettaton and I got this job." Said Alphys.

The tunnel they were walking through was incredibly still, Sans naturally felt compelled to whisper, but managed an appropriate social volume.

"'s I' fun? Getting to do whatever you want as the 'Royal Scientist'?" He said the title with grandeur.

"Hehe yeah…kind of boring, too, though."

"Working on anything right now?" He was excellent at small talk!. Even though he hated the usually-mundane activity.

"Uhm yeah…but i-its classified…by Asgore."

"Oh man that's cool as; fair enough."

"…Have you done any interesting stuff? I a-assume by your idea that you continued s-science." They were nearly there…hopefully.

"Yeah I guess. Just random stuff, waiting for technology and other stuff to advance, I guess. This whole idea is probably just a product of boredom, to be honest."

"W-where do you live? What about P-Papyrus?" She asked, too many questions in her mind to not jump topic erratically. She had so many things to ask but he seemed to be deflecting anything that focused on him too personally and it was frustrating

"Snowdin. He's doing awesome; still as cool as always. He's started training with Undyne."

"Really?! I-i had no idea!" Alphys was surprised.

"Yeah. You close with her?" Sans asked.

"O-oh um…sort of…" she prayed to whatever higher power that she wasn't blushing right now, "Just…staying in touch."

"Yeah…" man Sans was feeling guilty now for disappearing without a word for so long.

Luckily they were nearly at their destination because despite the fact that they both had so many questions, small talk was painful.

The library was _massive._ The shelves looked four times their height(The two blonde monsters were practically the same height) and there were rows and rows of aisles. Natural lighting came in through large windows marked with the Royal Rune. The streams of light pouring through the large ornamented windows, illuminating that the place was quite heavy in dust, the library not being used or cleaned much.

" _Wow_ " Sans exclaimed as he breathed in the thick, aged scent of vellichor.

He travelled over to one of the windows and looked out: they were looking down from a wing of the palace. He could see a large part of the Capital. People in the streets going about their lives.

"This is crazy as!...are you sure I'm allowed in here?!" He asked as he turned to face Alphys, who hadn't moved from the entrance.

"Yes. The king likes to read but he only uses a p-personal collection for himself and the books the- the q-queen used to read…so no one really uses it..." Alphys explained, "But uh- I can vouch for you anyway."

"That's a real shame…why doesn't he open it to the public?. Could move it out of the palace if he doesn't want everyone rampaging in the place." Sans said as he began examining the filing system.

"A-ah I'm not sure…Asgore is a really reclusive person, I guess…i-I'm not sure."

As long as she had known him, King Asgore had always had a melancholy air about him. He wasn't especially introverted, always quite willing to talk endlessly, but still not excessively social. He was a very nice man who radiated warmth, it hurt to see him the way he often was. Often smiling but always with a sadness in his old eyes.

"That's true," Sans agreed, "although if I recall correctly, he also likes company…is this history?" He asked, referring to the shelves of books he was currently examining.

"Uhm…yes" Alphys confirmed as she snapped back into the current situation and shuffled over to the books in question.

"Ho damn…this stuff looks hella legit!" Sans said in awe as he opened a book thick in dust.

Alphys hesitated in confusion at the sudden use of language, it seemed Sans had expanded his personal dictionary -if not thesaurus- since they had last spoken.

"Is this correct?" He said in relation to the large book, whose pages were aged and brown-not tan around the edges like an aged book, but fully brown like an ancient tome- and rich with the perfume of 'old book', "historically correct?"

"Urhm…yes I think so" She confirmed with a closer look, adjusting her glasses.

"This is amazing…" Sans shook his head, "oh man, I'm so excited!"

That's right, now it was coming back to her. He didn't look or act especially 'geeky', but he had always been a straight up nerd.

Alphys studies him properly for the first time today as his eyes darted over the old browned pages of the book: He had changed, he looked older-or at least more worn- with the same weariness in his bright eyes as had been in them when he was only eight. He had been only a child and a play mate back then, but now he radiated a certain maturity that made her feel squirmy inside.

"…Alphys, you good, bro?"

"Hmm yeah?" Her eyes refocused her from her daydream and back to the here and now, "W-what did you say?"

"…ehh…" Sans hesitated with confusion.

"…" Alphys stared back wordlessly, anxiety bubbling up inside.

"I was asking if I can borrow these and if so, how many?" Sans restated.

"Mm yeah, s-sure. As many as you can handle, I su-suppose."

"On second thoughts, can I live here?" Sans said

"Wh-what…?!" Alphys verbally stepped back.

"Chill its just a joke…cause like, there are just so many books here and id just have to devote the rest of my life and became a librarian or monk or something…you know what I mean?" explained Sans with playful smirk.

"Oh hahaha yeah" Alphys laughed with a squinting smile. Whether or not her laugh was meant to sound awkward, it was.

"Yep well I guess ill just look around, then" he said in a tone that suggested a change in conversation, "You wanna…come…I guess…?" He questioned with a slight shake of his head, "Could be awkward but you know my personal philosophy: Nothing is awkward unless you think it is…wait I already said that…that's kind of ironically awkward…did I just acknowledge it was awkward?…did I just violate my own rule just as I was stating it?…am I talking to myself…?" he looked up at her with a grimace, almost pleading to be saved from what had just happened.

Alphys stared in confusion for a moment before snorting out a giggle that morphed into a laugh that shook her whole body. His little display had brought more memories racing back: They had both been the champions of awkwardness, normally because she didn't know how to act, and he didn't know how to act appropriately (his jokes were often dark or a bit too suggestive for his age, not to mention he simply didn't agree with what was considered the socially acceptable way to behave; a bit of an eccentric, iconoclastic youth). He had gotten sick of people finding him and awkward silence awkward and had decided to face the fact head on. His tendency to address the facts that people seemed to think it the social standard to silently agree to ignore had made him the only person she felt comfortable around. Oh goodness she had really missed him.

After managing to move on from that awkward moment, Sans continued to geek out about every single book on the shelf, bringing back memory after memory until the nostalgia was so strong you could almost hear it. She continued to laugh awkwardly at her own awkwardness and his tolerance for it, until his enthusiasm spiked her interest too and they were both pulling books off the shelves like the bunch of nerds that they used to be.

They only made it past three or four aisles before Sans had collected more than he could carry and they both sat by one of many aesthetically spaced windows.

Sans was taking a further inspection of the books to check if they just repeated each other or if they were really necessary, trying to reduce his pile. Alphys sat back against the wall to the other side of the window, the rays of light creating a veil between the two and stretching out a pattern of light on the ground, the dust particles visibly sailing in the light.

Alphys sighed.

"It's been so long si-ince we've done this; do you remember how we used to d-do this?" Alphys said, disrupting the silence, which could physically be felt, in a strange way.

Sans looked up from the pages, as if peering into the past, "…yeah…we used to stay up really late and move from place to place to avoid getting caught." His eyes scrunched up with a smile.

"Hehe and Papyrus kept getting us caught, every time we got caught…but if we hid long enough, my dad would g-give up and let me stay the night!" Her volume raised with jubilance.

"And then we would be stupid enough to try stay up all night and everything would go crazy." Sans said, catching onto her trail.

"Papyrus always burnt himself out," Alphys recited fondly, " y-you were the only one who was r-really good at it."

"Ha. I still am…you'd think by now id have a more mature sleeping schedule, but you know, healthy lifestyle isn't my thing." Sans quipped with cadence that told a story of its own.

"Yeah, you still look l-like Hell." Alphys laughed. She wasn't wrong, skeletons were naturally pale with ceramic skin like a doll, but Sans' complexion was rather ashen and the dark circles around his eyes made him actually resemble a physical skeleton. Yeah, he looked like Hell. He had always looked like that, though. That is if hell were attractive…wait what?

"Thanks, man." He chuckled, "You should see Papyrus now; I literally pale in comparison to everything about him." He accented with a side-chop hand gesture as he shook his head. 'Hes really become quite something…' his voice was full of fondness and his mellow eyes softened more, gently shaking his head In proud disbelief.

Maybe this was the chance to finally ask the questions that had been gnawing at her all these years and now begging to be asked after seeing him again:

"I get yo-ou had your reasons to leave…but why didn't you contact me? Send some kind of sign of life? I-i-I was so worried about you two….i thought you might be dead…!" her voice increased with emotion as she spoke, becoming more erratic and on edge.

Sans looked over at her without a word, but you could see the guilt in his eyes, like a dogs ears dropping in shame.

She starred back, her eyes stinging slightly and begging for answers.

Their eyes stayed locked together momentarily before Sans sighed, closed the book on his lap and slid it off to the ground beside him:

"…" he breathed in as if to speak, his head going back and leaning against the wall behind him, "I…don't know how to answer that…im not even sure myself…im so…sorry…for everything…I shouldn't have left like that but…" he exhaled softly, eyes squinting as they searched the ceiling for nothing other than either an answer or a distraction.

Alphys stared desperately, her eyes examining and searching his face for some kind of clue. "I just d-ont under-erstand…I-I" her eyes squeezed closed as she tripped over her words before opening again, "I get that you had reasons but…it just felt like…like you didn't care about any of us or anything that had happened…like it all meant nothing…!" her eyes welled up and her voiced raised and shook with growing emotion that had been mulled over for years.

Sans closed his eyes and shook his head rolling it against the wall. "No I did care, I cared a so much; too much-"

"Th-then why did you have to leave?!"

"I-…I am _so_ sorry, Alphys…you didn't deserve it…it was so selfish of me to do…I was just… _so_ …" his own voice began to tremor, "I cant." He declared, moist eyes opening, "I jut cant talk about it right now…im sorry…just…not yet…" he turned his head to look her in the eyes, his own half closed and looking like they were filled with all the weariness he had felt over the years.

She searched his eyes for a few moments before speaking softly: "Okay…okay i-I understand…im sorry I didn't me-ean to push like that…" she stared a few seconds before blinking, as if moving herself into a new mood or setting, wiping the pricks of tears from her eyes and adjusting he glasses, Sans looking on with a forlorn, guiltily broken expression on his face.

She sighed the tense air away, trying to get herself back into some form of functional and presentable person.

"Uhh what were we ta-alking about…before… _that_ " she chuckled slightly.

Sans maintained his starring, concerned expression a few moments longer, empathising with his old friend before complying(a little to eager to move the conversation on) and take the conversation back to less personal and emotional matters.

【•.•】

Eventually they had left the library with a few less books than the original selection, Alphys had helped carry half the load and they both had finally remerged at the Hotland lab. Upon arrival, Alphys became aware of the fact that the 'pipes' had grown louder, she did her best to explain it away again, this time blaming the various processes and cycles of the Core.

"What kind of process?. I was too dumb back then but id really like to learn how the Core actually works…got anything on that?" Sans asked, "Maybe you could teach me, yourself when you're not busy?."

"W-what? You weren't dumb" She said disbelievingly, as if she couldn't make sense of something due to its complete illogical and ridiculous nature, "A-and yeah s-sure! But not right now! You've been here for a w-hile, Papyrus is probably waiting or something." Alphys said anxiously, trying to change the subject.

"Oh yeah true…thank you so much for the books and the help; its infinitely helpful." He began his farewell as he crouched as Alphys loaded the stack of books back with the rest that he had in his arms. "And sorry about that…other thing" he began, taking on a slightly sombre tone.

"It's f-fine." Alphys said, cutting him off, as she lead him over to the exit and opened the door for him, "…maybe we could meet up a-again sometime and c-catch up properly…?" she asked with a change of tone.

"Oh…yeah, of course! Yeah of course, man! It was so good to see you again…oh man I should probably get your number." Sans said from where he was standing looking in through the door.

"Yea-"IM BAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!"

A voice that sounded like it had gone through a mechanical filter interrupted whatever she had begun to say and outmatched it by several decibels.

Sans eyes went from warm to intensely fascinated as his curiosity was piqued as he tried to look past Alphys and locate the source of the new voice.

"Oh my gosh is that Mettaton?! Can I see him?!" He said with the excitement of a child or a mad scientist, trying to see inside the door.

"OOOOOOooh whose that!?" The voice chirped as it came closer.

"Aaaaaah NO! Don't get him talking he wont stop maybe next time!." Alphys shouted desperately to Sans before letting the sliding doors slam shut and lock.

Sans couldn't tell if it were reminiscent of a comedy or a horror film. It had definitely been Mettaton, that was okay, though, he could see him next time, and for now he had all those awesome books. He shrugged and began the trek home. With how much the books collectively weighed, he might just be able to challenge Undyne to an arm wrestle if he could carry them all home- lol not; no way in hell. he wasn't ready to get his arm and pride both utterly shattered at the same time just yet.

Alphys spun around after 'slamming the door' to face Mettaton.

"Awwww why did you do that?" Mettaton whined as he stopped in front of the panicked drake monster.

"Mettaton that was close! Y-you can't just go up to people like that; e-e-especially not him…!" Alphys shouted helplessly.

"Why not?" He scoffed, standing as akimbo as a rectangle on wheels can, "Who was he anyway? Is he your boyfriend or something, he sounded like a fan."

"N-neither!" she stuttered "He wants to know what you are and you kn-ow we can't allow that!"

"Hmm well I think he's cute; did you get his number?" Mettaton verbally waggled his non-existent brows, voice drawling.

She didn't get his number! She had been in too much of a hurry to get him out of there!.

"No…a-and its your fault with the wa-ay you came barging in." She said with a hint of salt.

"My fault?!" The rectangle gasped, "Honey don't blame me, if you want someone, you take them." He said dramatically

" _I don't want him!"_ she insisted forcefully.

"You're the only one stopping yourself…!" He continued as he began to follow Alphys who had started moving off with a bit of anger in her stride, "Well If you don't want him, ill have him." Mettaton teased desirously.

"Mettaton!" Alphys yapped almost desperately, spinning to face him.

"I'm Just joking around, Alphys darling. I'll let you have dibs on him."

"I don't want dibs on him; you can't say that about people!." said Alphys as she opened the door that lead to the lower levels of the lab to deal to a matter long over-due.

"Whatever." Mettaton drawled before going off to do who knows what; probably something too glamourous for her to understand.

 **FREAKING HECK ITS BEEN LIKE 6 MONTHS OR SOMETHING.**

 **To anyone who cared enough to be interested in this story, I am so sorry for taking so long. Life happens and it happens hard but ive finally gotten this chapter ready to go out  
**

**I actually wrote this months ago but am just editing it now. Theres a lot about this chapters structure and thematics that im not happy about but I thinks its better to just move on rather than rewrite it all**

 **Anyways so sorry for the wait. I hope you are all well and having a good year and im so thankful for anyone who shows interest in this story lmbo it means a lot**

 **Hopefully it wont take me this long to get the next chapter out but you know how it is ¬-¬**

 **Hi again**

 **Sorry**

 **Thank you**

 **Bye**

 **Also comment follow or favourite if youre feeling like it or think its worth it**

 **Take care yall**


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